What does Google say about SEO?

Should you disavow links to boost your Google ranking?

John Mueller Feb 19, 2019 ★★★

Disavowing links can be beneficial if your site is affected by a manual action due to unnatural links. However, this does not guarantee an improvement in ranking if the site depended on those links for its initial ranking.

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files Penalties & Spam

Should you really create a separate site for each country for your international SEO?

John Mueller Feb 19, 2019 ★★★

Creating a site for each country is not recommended if the content is not unique. Using hreflang does not guarantee a higher rank in the targeted country; it still requires strong and distinct content.

Content AI & SEO International SEO

Can You Really Create a Search Console Property for a Non-Indexed Site?

John Mueller Feb 18, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that, in principle, a website does not need to be indexed on the search engine to create a Search Console property at its address. Theoretically, you can therefore register a test website on Search Console...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Social Media Search Console

Should You Really Avoid Frequently Switching Pages Between Index and Noindex?

John Mueller Feb 18, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that you shouldn't switch too often, for the same page, from a "noindex" version to an "index" version for the meta robots tag. This can confuse Google's analysis and slow down future crawls. It is of course possible...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO Social Media

Does RankBrain Really Ignore Click-Through Rate and Time on Page?

Gary Illyes Feb 11, 2019 ★★★

Gary Illyes explained his vision of the RankBrain algorithm on Reddit: "RankBrain is a 'PR-sexy' machine learning component that uses historical search data to predict what a user would most likely click on for a brand new query that has never been t...

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO Images & Videos

Does the Google Sandbox Really Exist for New Pages?

John Mueller Feb 11, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that there is no "sandbox" on Google that would deprive a newly created page of certain rankings before a certain period of time. On this subject, his response was fairly standard: "We use a ton of factors for crawli...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Local Search Social Media

How do hreflang tags slow down the indexing of your international pages?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★★

Hreflang tags allow you to indicate to Google the different language versions of your pages. This process involves several steps: we must first crawl and index the different versions of a page, understand the network of pages linked via hreflang, and...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO International SEO

Does URL structure really impact SEO rankings?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★★

You can use any URL structure as long as it doesn't lead to infinite spaces. Clear and simple structures favor proper crawling and indexing. Ideally, the URL structure should not change frequently.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure

Why do your embedded resources fail to load in Google's testing tools?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★

If resources like images don't load in testing tools, it might be because we don't have enough time to load all resources in our live tool. You can improve performance by reducing the number of embedded resources or optimizing the server.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Images & Videos Web Performance Search Console

Why do some 301 redirects take months to be reviewed by Google?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★

301 redirects must be handled on a page-by-page basis to be properly understood by Google. This process is gradual, with some pages being indexed very quickly, while others may take several months to be reviewed.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Redirects

Why might your syndicated content rank better elsewhere than on your own site?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★★

Syndicated content may rank better on a third-party site than on yours due to the added value from the rest of the site. The canonical attribute is a good indicator for linking similar pages, but it doesn't always guarantee that your version will ran...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Can Googlebot's cache really hinder the indexing of your pages?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★★

During indexing, Googlebot uses cached resources to reduce crawl time. An excessive number of resources can affect indexing if the loading turns out to be too long or heavy.

Crawl & Indexing Web Performance

Do web.dev scores really impact your Google ranking?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★

Performance scores on web.dev represent best practices, but a low score does not automatically indicate a lower rank in Google search results. Very slow sites are more likely to encounter indexing problems.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Web Performance Search Console

Do Canonical Fluctuations Really Ruin Your Indexing?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★

Fluctuations in canonical declarations may be due to data processing and should not change frequently. If they do, send examples for investigation.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Does Googlebot really crawl from the U.S. for all countries?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★★

Googlebot has no preference for Swiss content but generally conducts its crawling activities from the United States. This is important for considering the customization and indexing of multi-country content.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Does structured data really enhance your Google ranking?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2019 ★★

Google collects structured data to enrich search results, but providing it does not guarantee a change in ranking or display in the SERPs.

Domain Age & History Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO

Should you use the JSON-LD expiration date to hide absent videos from Google search results?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2019 ★★

John Mueller advises using the expiration date in JSON-LD structured data to indicate to Google not to include certain video content in search results, particularly when a page does not actually contain a corresponding video.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Structured Data AI & SEO Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Search Console

Why does Google crawl your pages without indexing them?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller explains that not all crawled pages are automatically indexed by Google. The algorithms determine whether energy should be focused on certain pages based on their relevance and potential visibility in searches.

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Is it really necessary to update your sitemap with every new page?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2019 ★★★

If Google discovers and indexes new pages through normal crawling, it is not crucial to update the sitemap file, although it does help to recognize changes more quickly.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files Search Console

Should you really monitor and disavow all your spammy inbound links?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2019 ★★★

It is not necessary to constantly monitor spammy inbound links as Google is generally good at ignoring them. However, if you have purchased links in the past, it is recommended to clean up that activity.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam